For Sue Vincent’s #writephoto challenge. True to form, this week’s photo inspires morbid thoughts.
Dawn was breaking. He was preparing to say Mass as he did every morning, even though he was in hiding, even though there was no one to hear it. He had heard their horses clatter on the cobbled courtyard and their rough, soldiers’ voices. He hoped his hosts would not be too badly treated, but after all, they were only doing God’s work. They would get their reward in heaven. Slowly and deliberately he carried on vesting, repeating the familiar gestures with their comforting symbolism. Boots drummed on the wooden stairs. He placed the stole about his neck and waited for the door to burst open.
The soldiers pushed him down the stairs, as if he offered resistance. When he stumbled, they laughed and kicked him to get up. He let his eyes turn inwards and thought of Jesus on the way to Calvary and forced his growing terror to be silent. He was a priest of God, these ruffians would pay for their sins unless they repented. Repentance of unbelievers was, fortunately, unlikely.
In the courtyard, a nag waited patiently between the shafts of a cart. In the cart were his hosts, their clothes torn, their faces bruised and puffy. Dame Agnes tried in vain to cover the flesh the soldiers’ ill-treatment had exposed. He turned his face away, frowning slightly.
Sir James held himself like a military man, the bruises on his face like so many war trophies. The priest noticed the slight tremor of his jaw and opened his mouth to give him courage—he had been but doing his duty to protect his priest—but one of the heretics slapped him in the face and the words died unsaid.
Later, the priest died in a turmoil of ecstasy and fear. James, his bruises turned black, and his lady Agnes died solemnly with the terrified, tearful faces of their children in their eyes.
The room is still there, still flooded with dawn light of that last terrible dawn, by day and by night. But there are no ghosts, no priestly hauntings or soldiers’ souls unable to rest. Just light.
Jane Dougherty Writes 
Dark enough, Jane… and close enough too to the origin of the photo. At least the light remains.
Pure and unchanging. We don’t pay enough attention to it.
Some of us do… it holds the roots of everything.
For too many it’s just necessary for taking a selfie outside.
There is more to light than that… and maybe that lack of perception is at the heart of the problem.
Light is what creates and nurtures life, life is what makes the world the world and not a dead chunk of stone. Talk to some people and they seem to think that everything happens because you flick a switch. Tear up the green stuff and you can still flick switches. We are idiots.
The ancients knew better than we when they lifted their eyes to the sun.
They knew a lot of things that we have forgotten.
But the knowledge is still there, waiting to be rediscovered.
They’d better be quick.
🙂
Some folk suffered terribly at the hands of those who knew no better whose ignorance overshadowed all vestiges of humanity….very powerful write Jane..
Thanks Michael! We seem to have a knack for suffering and making others suffer too.
Terrifying because it’s based on truth. This kind of writing is too painful to read, and yet people are so untouched by it, because it happened so long ago, they can’t imagine it’s real. I felt the same when I was writing about poor Petronella de Meathe a few weeks ago. We are too cushioned in our safe modern world, yet similar atrocities are happening all around us even now. I’m glad that so many of us live in safety and stability, but what has it turned us into? Anyway, that could all be about to change, and not for the better, sadly. What a horrible week.
It’s not over. We have presidential election coming up and the only question mark is who is going to stand against Marine Le Pen? It’s going to be somebody not very palatable because the left have gone to pieces, but if it’s just a man in a suit, she’s going to romp home.
‘We are idiots’ now there’s a prompt. Quite. Splendid mantra for today’s absurdities. Like being trapped in Pirandello’s brain on the short spin cycle. Thank you for something warming on a drab day, Jane. You may be surprised but you made me smile…
If I made you smile, Geoff, that has made my day too 🙂 You might find this scary—I’m a fan of Pirandello. We have a lot of ideas in common.
I’ll need to give that some thought!!
🙂
Great story, and disturbing because all this happened! I to believe in the light… it has seen it all as has the dark. xxx
Thank you! We tend to think we are the most important elements in existence, but we are ephemeral and individually of notmuch consequence. Light is eternal.
Yes it is!